Bringing Law Out of Disorder : Broadcasting: An organization advises Eastern Europe on how to organize, regulate and privatize its TV and radio industries.

The newly independent republic of Croatia was desperate for international recognition. To curry favor with the German government, which was willing to advance its case before the European Community, the state-run Croatian TV network banned all movies about World Wars I and II that presented a negative portrayal of Germany.

In Hungary, a legislator denounced TV weather broadcasts for continuing to forecast dry, sunny days. The forecasts were upsetting the nation’s farmers, the politician said, and must be stopped.

Throughout Eastern Europe, stories like these are popping up with regularity. Political freedom may have come to the region, but when it comes to freedom for the broadcast media, there is still an enormous tension between the old, authoritarian ways and the demands of the new dispensation.

David Webster refers to it as the “fear of freedom,” the realization that “you can only learn about responsibility if you are free to exercise it.” As chairman of the nonprofit, Washington-based Trans-Atlantic Dialogue on European Broadcasting, the 61-year-old former BBC executive has seen this fear in all its manifestations.

Organized four years ago in response to changes taking place in European broadcasting, the 50-member organization--composed of senior executives in broadcasting, production, investment banking, law, politics and management from the United States, Canada and Western Europe--is advising the Eastern European nations how to organize, regulate and privatize their TV and radio industries.

“All sorts of people train journalists,” Webster says of his mandate, “but my job is to train politicians. What, for example, is the difference between an entirely proper complaint (to the media) and improper pressure? It is absolutely necessary for politicians to understand the nature of the relationship, and to try to work it out.”

First, however, the Eastern European nations have to set up a legal and regulatory structure for their broadcast media--and that’s where the Dialogue may be having the most influence.

“They all need a law that separates the state-run broadcasting authority from the direct control of either the president or the parliament,” says Dan Brenner, director of the communications law program at UCLA. “In practice, even the new reformers are not so anxious to remove the hand of regulation from the broadcasting authority. They would just as soon not give up all power over what the press says.”

A member of the Dialogue, Brenner has helped draft Czechoslovakia’s broadcast law (the only one in Eastern Europe), and is advising Albania on similar matters.

Webster sees the approach as multi-pronged. First, countries have to define the relationship between government and broadcasting. Then they have to determine the regulatory structure. “Are they going to first of all pass a law abolishing state monopoly over broadcasting?” he asks rhetorically. “And how do they develop a mixed economy in broadcasting?”

The problem is easier to define than solve. Webster sees the BBC or PBS models as a key--converting state-run systems into structures dependent on public financing that maintain their distance from government. The Dialogue also suggests that governments immediately promote private ownership of radio stations.

“Radio is inexpensive in respect to TV, it’s an independent source of information in case TV is taken over by the state, and it promotes a sense of localism,” Brenner explains.

One reason the Dialogue is advancing the cause of radio is because Webster feels that private TV cannot sustain itself in an economy that is not fully privatized. To overcome this in the short term, and to ensure that foreign--particularly American--programming will not monopolize Eastern European airwaves, he has come up with a visionary proposal: a regional, multinational, multilingual satellite signal that will be jointly programmed and purchased, with joint advertising sales.

“It’s based on the U.S. network-affiliate relationship,” he says. “This way the little local station can pull down off of the satellite what it wants.”

The problem with ideas like this is that they are operating in an arena of almost total chaos. And in a legal vacuum, the potential for corruption is enormous. In Czechoslovakia, for example, several mayors cut cable deals with foreign companies, even though they had no right to do so. Also affecting the Dialogue’s work are ethnic and religious tensions: In Hungary, says Webster, there’s talk of “cosmopolitan tendencies” (an anti-Semitic reference) in the media; in Poland, the Catholic Church is not only trying to regulate the media but also trying to obtain its own broadcast licenses.

Members of the Dialogue must also ensure that the financial interests of their own companies do not conflict with the interests of the governments they are trying to help. Webster says that this has not been a problem so far.

Webster sees the process of establishing independent broadcasting in Eastern Europe as long-term, and generational in its complexity. It is affected by “countries which are intellectually crippled from years of totalitarianism. They don’t know how to make decisions, there’s a tendency toward corruption, and they’re vastly inefficient.”

But attitudes are changing. Webster tells of asking an executive in one state-run TV system if he still received political interference. The response was that there was still a special phone in the office, connected to the government. Webster asked what he did when it rang.

The executive responded: “I pick it up and say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nobody here. I’m only the cleaning lady.’ ”